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Origin and history

The Cité de la Mer is a maritime museum located in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, Normandy, dedicated to underwater exploration and transatlantic adventure. Inaugurated on 29 April 2002, it occupies the former Transatlantic Art Deco station, built between 1928 and 1933 by René Levasseur. This monument, nicknamed Notre-Dame des Queens, was a major hub for liners and trains, dynamity in 1944 and then partially rebuilt. The museum project was born in the 1990s to preserve Le Redoutable, the first French nuclear submarine, disarmed in 1991.

The transatlantic station, France's largest Art Deco monument, was inaugurated in 1933 by President Albert Lebrun. Damaged during World War II, it was abandoned in the 1970s before being classified as a historic monument in 1989. In the 1990s, Olivier Stirn and Bernard Cauvin carried out the project of transformation into a museum, financed by the State, the EU and local authorities. The architect Jean-François Milou and the museographer Jacques Lichnerowicz design spaces, including a 10-metre aquarium and exhibitions on the seabed.

In 2012, the City of the Sea inaugurated a dedicated space for Titanic, marking the centenary of its stopover in Cherbourg. The museum also houses Le Redoutable (1967), the only SNLE to be visited in the world, and underwater gears such as the Archimedes, descending to 9,545 metres in 1962. In 2022, the station and Le Redoutable were elected the French favorite monument. Since 2024, the museum has been managed by Edeis, with renovation projects worth EUR 15 million by 2028.

The permanent exhibitions explore underwater technologies, abyssal fauna (17 aquariums) and the history of ships. The Grande Galerie des métiers presents international bathyscaphes, while the media library offers 3,120 books on the maritime world. With more than 5 million visitors since its opening, La Cité de la Mer is the 3rd most frequented paying site in Normandy, after Mont-Saint-Michel and the Caen Memorial.

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